San Juan Surf Resort — Hotel in Luzon

What they do best: Updated rooms and facilities, access to the beach, good AC and wifi, surf motif, surf school, surf shop, and a hipster restaurant and juice bar called Seabuds. What needs improvement: Hospitality, room amenities, flexibility with requests

I always wanted to stay here. It is the embodiment of the surf town of San Juan. After arriving, I realize I was definitely not misled. The surf culture is strong while create comforts assure most people a comfortable stay. They are careful not to cross into luxury hotel status that may invite people who have no interest in what they stand for. Instead they doubled down on their surf school, surf shop, and their well-appointed restaurant, Coast Call. Compared to most establishments in the area, this is definitely the place to go to have a good time at the beach and to have that true surfer feel complete with the comfort of what you would expect from a hotel.

That’s of course true only if you weren’t expecting a 4-star hotel as advertised. I am deeply disappointed by my experience. There are too many complaints to list down but the general theme that unites them all is cost-cutting and inflexibility. I have never stayed at a place that felt like they wanted to strip all they could until it was still legal to be called a 4-star hotel. Never have I encountered an establishment that refused a request for extra pillows and towels but invested on a 122 channel satellite TV service. Their toiletries were only there to tick a box while their complimentary breakfast really made me feel like it was only complimentary (I had to always add an order of extra eggs). The reception staff was especially unfriendly and refused to greet you back or even look you in the eyes on most cases. What would also be usually given for free upon discretion, they actually charged for late check-outs despite their empty guest list.

That being said, I can be accused of nit-picking. But please take into consideration that hotels are in the hospitality business. No matter the brand of the hotel and how nice their rooms look, when they fail to make you feel welcome and refuse to be hospitable and accommodating, then you’re really left with nothing but a ok bed in a modestly decorated building.

I likely will stay here again for the sole reason that it is San Juan Surf Resort. But like me, don’t make the mistake of expecting a warm experience. Treat it like a business hotel and make sure you bring your own extra towels...

We stayed here for the first time at room 8. It is the best room for me if you stay here because you can just sit there and lounge for hours with the perfect view of the shore and you can just people watch. So we tried booking again the second time around although this room is not available. Still, since this is a hotel which has a good beachfront location we still chose to stay here. The hotel is almost fully booked but “luckily” there are two rooms left.

Room 23. It is very close from the parking and reception which is nice, not too much walking with all your things. However, upon entering the room the bad smell was really noticeable, that’s why they have a renuzit scent to mask it off. The room was small, although it has a balcony with a nice view of the pathway towards the beach. Then we complained about the heater not working. The staff said it has been checked and it’s working then out of curiousness we tested it and voila, still not working. Then we found out from the maintenance that it needs parts replacement - ok, now what do we do. Can’t transfer rooms since yea it’s fully booked.. I know it’s hot outside but we are used to heated showers and that is inclusive of what we paid for the room. Now they chose to apologize and decided to REPLACE the heater while we are staying there. I mean wow. Positive customer experience turnout clearly hasn’t been considered. The heater should be working in the first place, it’s not like we asked for a favor to make it work. A room discount would be nice, or something else that can make the customer feel they are valued. We didn’t feel any good customer service at all. The reason we feel this way is because we have been travelling most of the time and even the simplest hotels or inns can make the best positive experience ever, but San Juan Surf presents themselves as the go to place to stay, but very poor customer service and maintenance. The women at the reception are always very unfriendly, I cannot feel that they love what they do. I hope something can be done with customer service, it is supposedly...

I’ve stayed at this hotel twice before the pandemic and so far my stay has been great. So when I recommeded it to my co-workers, I was excited to go back with them.

But we ran out of rooms at the resort. The only available rooms are what they call condo type. Since I’ve had an amazing experience during the past years, we decided to book it.

We had to check in late that first night and the guard gladly assisted us. The unit was outside the resort premises. It was just outside the main road but it was okay. The room was spacious and clean.

The problems started the next day. Our power was constantly going off at about an hour at a time. We thought it was just usual since it was summer and there was probably a power outage. But it kept on going off every 2 hrs or so. We called the front desk about it. They usually fixed the problem after about 40min to an hour but the brownout still kept happening.

To make matters worst, when we went to the beach using the hotel entrance, the staff were annoyed at us. We did not know why. We came back to the beach later that day and the new guard on duty stopped us and said it was private property. We were not allowed to pass by the resort entrance to the beach. It was only when we explained that we checked in at the condo room outside when he allowed us. This happened twice. Now we knew why the staff at the restaurant was annoyed when we passed by and ask one of them to take photo of us in the lobby. They probably thought we were trespassers and since we did not come from the main hotel rooms, they thought we were checked in somewhere else.

We kept on asking the front desk about the brownout. They offered us another room but it was too late as we were about the check out in a few hours. They did allow us to stay 1hr after check out time.

I hope this does not happen again. It could’ve been a five star review but this time during my stay, it...